Strange rebellions – pain

‘Humans are infinitely sensitive to pain. The richer our inner lives, the more varieties of pain we can feel.’ So says Gene Winter, the hypnotist who guides Carol through her future life.

For many years I’ve worked on medical journals. The articles I’ve always been most captured by are the ones about pain. As anyone who has battled with chronic pain knows, it is anything but straightforward.

Some pain has a clear origin – a broken leg, a mashed finger. Do the right things and it’s mended. But there’s an entire branch of medicine dedicated to pain that refuses to mend and has no explanation. Strange misfirings of the nervous system, rebellions to something unknown within the body and mind. It does not matter that a cause can’t be found, that the pain shouldn’t be there. It is real.